DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711060018

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Letter 

                                            LENGTH:  112 lines

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

EDUCATION

Put New Horizon

money into schools

About your Oct. 20 article, ``Suspended students hit the books, not the streets, with New Horizons'': It's hard to find sympathy for someone who, for whatever reason, has been suspended from school. These kids, in your words, have fought, committed forgery, cussed and shown disrespect. They have stopped other kids from learning and they have hampered the teachers. They should not get special treatment of any type.

It is time for Norfolk residents to say: Take that $150,000 from the New Horizons program and put it back where it belongs, Norfolk public schools. The teachers could hire an assistant to help them in the classroom, or more computers could be bought. Suspended students, as well as their parents, need to realize there will be penalties for their behavior.

Michael Lipieko

Norfolk, Oct. 22, 1997

REGIONALISM - NOT

A resident of Norfolk,

and proud of it!

The entertainment section spoke of Chrysler Hall and a performance in Hampton Roads.

Chrysler Hall is in Norfolk. I am proud that it is in Norfolk.

Whenever your newspaper mentions an event or occurrence in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake, you print Virginia Beach or Chesapeake. However, at every opportunity you replace Norfolk with Hampton Roads.

You do not refer to the amphitheater in Hampton Roads.

No survey has ever shown that local residents wish to be located in a place called Hampton Roads, a name for centuries of an anchorage for ships off of Hampton, Virginia, not even on the southside.

Fred Bashara

Norfolk, Oct. 21, 1997

SCOPE

Too many people,

not enough parking

On Saturday night, Oct. 18, I attended a concert at Chrysler Hall. I left home at 6:45 in order to get a parking space. I knew that there would be a problem because two events were scheduled, one at Chrysler Hall and the other at Scope.

It was more than I had anticipated. There were cars and people everywhere, a madhouse. The parking lot at Chrysler Hall was full, and the parking lot across the street was closed.

I decided I would do what everyone else was doing and park anywhere I could find a spot, by a sign that said ``No Parking'' except during certain hours on Sunday. I asked a policeman standing in front of the Chrysler parking lot and he said they usually don't give tickets under these circumstances.

Needless to say, I found a wet, soggy ticket on my windshield: ``VIOLATION'' $30 fine.

I am very angry, not at the police but with the city of Norfolk. It has allowed Chrysler Hall and Scope to be built within feet of each other without adequate parking space.

Eugenia S. ``Jean'' Kennedy

Virginia Beach, Oct. 21, 1997

WILDLIFE

Feeding the bears

not a wise idea

Regarding the Oct. 26 Daily Break article, ``Duty and the Beasts'':

Not to be too harsh with Kay Grayson, who feeds black bears near her home in a rural area of North Carolina - even from her hand sometimes - but by no stretch of reason can she be thought to be helping the bears. If this happened in Alaska, the bears would be captured and relocated to a very remote area as soon as the feeding was discovered. This protects humans, their homes and camps from coming under attack from bears looking for food, and protects the bears from having to be destroyed.

Ms. Grayson complains of poachers, but she clearly is cooperating with the poachers by ``baiting'' bears year-round and by teaching bears to approach the poachers for food.

This very well-intentioned lady needs to stop feeding the bears so that they will go back to their natural foods; spread out, as is their nature, rather than congregate; and fade noiselessly into the deeper woods and brush when a human approaches.

That Ms. Grayson doesn't see the difference between feeding birds and feeding bears is all the more reason to worry: for her, for others and for the bears. If she truly loves the bears that have congregated near her home and come for food when she calls them, she must set them free!

Richard D. Guy

Virginia Beach, Oct. 27, 1997

NORFOLK

ODU expansion

described years ago

Old Dominion Coffee House owners Jeff and Kimberly Sniffen claim they are facing huge losses because of Old Dominion University's expansion plans (``The price of progress,'' Oct. 22).

Jay Sherrill, vice chairman of the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority, joins in with his claim of how Virginia oppresses the small-business owner. While I can empathize with the plight of the long-established businesses along Hampton Boulevard, I have little sympathy for the situation the Sniffens now find themselves in.

It has long been public knowledge that ODU was planning to expand east - that was confirmed in a Virginian-Pilot article on Jan. 1, 1994. This same article said that construction could start as early as 1997.

The Sniffens' decision to move into the old King's Head Inn during the summer of 1996 appears to simply be a poor business decision. I resent Sherrill's proposition that I, a taxpayer, provide some sort of business welfare for poor judgment. In 1996, Mr. Sherrill knew very well about ODU's planned expansion. Why didn't he, as a leader of the small-business community, walk across the street then and warn the Sniffens rather than asking the taxpayers to bail them out a year later?

Curtis K. Aasen

Norfolk, Oct. 23, 1997

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